Strategies for innovation in tertiary education producing mode III knowledge and personal capital.doc

7it was presented by harkins and vitaskova in paris during the 4easst conference, late august 2004.strategies for innovation in tertiary education:producing mode iii knowledge & personal capitalarthur harkins, ph.d. anna vitskov, ph.d. lori blake mollberg, m.a.abstractthe knowledge-to-innovation path defines an emerging need for tertiary educational and institutional support of innovative knowledge workers in all sectors of modern global workforces. therefore, strategically oriented tertiary education must alter its mission to include the vigorous production of mode iii knowledge. we assume the a priori relevance of person-focused, mode iii-driven education services for growing economies based on symbolic resources and the requirement for individuals as well as collectives to shape useable knowledge from such resources. the goal of this paper is to demonstrate how personal capital and social capital can be enhanced by the recognition and development of mode iii knowledge production, or that knowledge driven by the uniqueness of the individual learner. our approach employs nine sets of framers (i.e., technology, context, process, knowledge, culture/value, role, learning, application, policy/decision) for tertiary education services in support of routine, continuous innovation at the level of the individual. it is assumed that simple framers can be acquired by ordinary individuals practicing implicate professionalism, and that their communication and collaboration with tertiary education can thereby expand. our guiding assumptions has been that tacit knowledge is positioned within the individual, and that explicit knowledge emerges as a product of individuals who endeavor to selectively apply their knowledge in the forms of personal and social capital in support of continuous innovation. introductionthe goal of this paper is to demonstrate how personal capital and social capital can be enhanced, especially in countries in transition, by the recognition and development of mode iii knowledge production, or that creation of knowledge driven by the uniqueness of the individual learner.personal capital is a holistic approach to describing individual potential. it is a fusion of the functional and procedural knowledge, skills and talents, imagination and creativity, courage, attitude, worldview, vision, energy, passion, organization, wisdom, intuition, emotional intelligence, communication and relationship skills, social capital and networks, initiative, leadership and other personal resources that an individual brings to bear and is able to apply on the spot, in any situation, may it be professional, social, or personal. in addition, personal capital is about innovating the self, and pro-actively finding a variety of contexts that encourage the selfs fullest expression of actionable potential, resulting in continuous growth and improved capacity to catalyze other forms of capital, such as social capital in organizations, institutions, and corporations. therefore, we define social capital as the synergistic application of personal capital within value-creating institutions, organizations, and corporations.personal capital is a useful concept to consider particularly in former socialist countries because it takes a broader look at the diverse and related facets that make up individual potential and allows for many pathways towards achieving personal goals, vision, and purpose. personal capital development does away with stagnation, plateaus, and boredom. it allows one to create a vision of what one wants to be, and offers an evaluative method for self-assessment; self-assessment that identifies potential gaps in the pathways to achieving the vision, offering the possibility of continuous cycles of growth and self-improvement at every stage of life . gibbons and his associates (1994) have already demonstrated the importance of mode i knowledge production, or that organizationally produced through basic research, and consequently mode ii knowledge production, or that organizationally produced through applied research. in europe, an overwhelming majority of tertiary institutions devote their primary resources to mode i knowledge production, very often following state, less so corporate or foundational directives and influences. in other words, the european universities are characterized by a high degree of heterogeneity reflected in their organization and governance. for such top-down approaches, they have been persistently criticized by the commission of the european communities. this is in contrast to the u.s., where the majority of universities is now focusing on mode ii knowledge production where the order of “followership” is reversed; they very often follow corporate directives and less so the state ones. despite the stance, one is willing to take on the effectiveness of mode i vs. mode ii or the combination of both, there is yet another, intentional production of person-driven mode iii knowledge, or a bottom-up approach. this approach permits the identification, measurement, and utilization of knowledge resources that would otherwise remain fallow or trapped in the netherworld of social invisibility. the capacity of the individual to expression mode iii knowledge is defined as his or her personal capital. for the individual student, the outcome of innovation-supportive tertiary education is the expansion of personally constructed knowledge expressed as personal and social capital.for us, the knowledge-to-innovation path defines an emerging need for tertiary educational and institutional support of innovative knowledge workers in all sectors of modern global workforces. our argument, therefore, is that strategically oriented tertiary education must alter its mission to include the vigorous production of mode iii knowledge. this notion of bottom-up knowledge creation based on an intellectually proactive individuals should be considered as a method for leapfrogging in central and eastern europe.background to the argumentour strategies for innovation in tertiary education rest upon two fundamental assumptions: (1) the emergence of socioeconomic and cultural changes in the workplace; and subsequently (2) these changes call for an individual (bottom-up) approach and participation in knowledge production. the workforce changes now underway, often driven by technology, are perhaps the major justifications for re-missioning tertiary education to energetically produce mode iii knowledge and its derivatives, personal and social capital. these two forms of capital in turn drive the emergence of innovative knowledge workers. as information permits the utilization of data, knowledge allows the productive use of information. information workers transform data, supplying results to knowledge workers as the latters basic symbolic resource. knowledge workers then transform this information into improved and new goods and services. knowledge workers currently comprise 34% of the workforce in the czech republic (32% in poland, 38% in hungary, 33% in canada, 40% in the usa). innovative knowledge workers then help to redirect the goals and missions of professionals, technicians, and other workers. innovative knowledge workers will be 80% of the usa workforce by 2014 (our projection).some of the changes associated with the emergence of innovative knowledge workers are:1. cultural factors: complexity; new sciences; science fiction myths replacing old images of human potential; media becoming de facto mass education systems; rise of ubiquitous choices; management for output/results; management for continuous upgrades and continuous innovation.2. societal factors: webs replacing pyramids; walls and barriers tumbling down; situational selves replacing character; individuals/groups able to catalyze or destabilize large entities.3. work place factors: loss of moral and institutional authority; threatened replacement by electronics/software products and cheaper labor; lack of workable professional alternatives; fundamental dichotomy between emphasis on delivery systems vs. focus on value to customers vs. the pull of future competencies.all of these changes require new forms of knowledge production; forms that emphasizes creativity, forward-thinking, invention, and true innovation. as stated elsewhere in this paper, the mode 1 model of knowledge production is generated within a disciplinary context and validated by a defined community of disciplinary specialists who make decisions as to what counts as sound research. the internal operational mechanisms of most central and eastern european research universities are driven precisely by such fixed hierarchies with top-down control structures and rigid practices in discipline-specific knowledge production. we assume the a priori relevance of person-focused, mode iii-driven education services for growing economies based on symbolic resources and the requirement for individuals as well as collectives to shape useable knowledge from such resources. the innovative application of knowledge products is part of the services provided by leadership in tertiary education and other institutions. it is part of the complex of processes required to develop traditional and non-traditional learners, thereby raising their personal capital and its potential to drive extensions of social capital. our premises are as follows: the knowledge revolution is producing a societal requirement for continuous innovation. until now, mode i and mode ii knowledge production have been focused upon to the relative under-development of mode iii knowledge production. universities, therefore, should support mode iii knowledge production within a new emphasis upon personal capital development. universities can support and lead continuous innovation by expanding their mission definitions and broadening their markets to support lifelong learning within the framework of mode iii knowledge production. this changed emphasis will require that universities reengineer learning contexts for personal development and leadership through mode iii knowledge production and its application through continuous innovation. to accomplish these steps, tertiary education systems should reject any pedagogical or curricular disservices driven by what we call mode 0, or knowledge-suppressing activities. for example, our contention is that lecture-driven mass education is not the best platform for minimizing the threat of mode 0 knowledge suppression. of critical importance to mode iii knowledge production (and the minimization of mode 0 threats) is contextual redesign for strategic innovation leadership within tertiary education. such redesign must support the engine underlying mode iii knowledge production: the personal creation of meaning. applied meaning is the engine that drives personal capital, which in turn stimulates social capital and continuous societal innovation.fortunately, the social and cultural realities and potentials of emerging innovation societies are now also being recognized in the european union. for this, progressive tertiary institutions may take cheer and savor new futures of service and leadership. still, while some nations have begun to enter continuous innovation era, many of their leaders have only started to recognize the existence of a knowledge era. yet, most politicians and other educational leaders behave as though tertiary education is preparing youth for an information era, and are shocked to find their workforces threatened by the emergence of knowledge workers in formerly less-developed societies (i.e., south korea and india). perhaps the most regrettable of situations, short of no services at all, is signaled by countries forsaking the potentials of mode iii learning in favor of factory-model schooling - a retreat to the rote memory industrial and agricultural eras.a new emphasis on the individual is requiredwhat might these projected changes imply for re-missioning todays tertiary education as a source of leadership in the production of mode iii knowledge and its derivatives, personal and social capital? harkins and fiala recently asked, can tertiary education shift from industrial/informational models of collective capital preparation to knowledge/innovation models? can tertiary education focus seriously on recognizing and developing the uniqueness and variety of individuals through technology-supported, individualized learning services? can tertiary education focus more on student innovations as opposed to context-free testing and rigidly constrained paper topics? can tertiary education become more experiential and experimental as it moves toward knowledge-based, innovation-supportive learning services? can tertiary education innovate development of the individual through lifelong subscription services? can tertiary education move to create expectations of innovational leadership among its faculty and students?we assert that every functional adult together with many adolescents and children, are already practicing an implicit skill set with strong ties to the personal capital development potentials of tertiary education, especially those common to research universities. we also claim that the average individual exerts far more inventive and innovative activity than credit is given for, and that tertiary education should address itself to facilitating the processes of invention and innovation while collaborating with individuals of many backgrounds.the arguments for this association are two:(1) that the ordinary individual could benefit enormously from continuous contact with tertiary education, especially if the individual is part of a society moving toward continuous innovation; and (2) that tertiary education would also gain enormously from inputs of information, knowledge, and ideas from literally billions of individuals, most of them ordinary by our present assessments. the proposed task of tertiary education becomes two-fold: (1) to assist the ordinary individual to become extraordinary in ways that emerge from collaborations between the two parties; and (2) to evolve individuals and universities as co-leaders in knowledge development and innovative applications. how do individuals routinely invent and innovate in situ using tacit and explicit knowledge, much of which is employed experimentally or constructed out of whole cloth? how can this daily expression of personal capital become codified and/or externalized, and made part of expected services of tertiary education? how can tertiary education vastly expand its impact on the individual and the collective by providing its individual clients with the shortest possible time and application delays? how can tertiary education expand both personal capital and social capital, in part by making the substance of each more explicit?we submit that the ordinary individuals skill set includes a host of capabilities common to the professional practices of research universities. we believe that such skills should become the core of redesigned curricula and pedagogies. some of these skills, all associated with expansions and expressions of personal and social capital, are: inductive and deductive thought, construction of theorems and hypotheses within more or less well-known contexts, generation of new ideas and knowledge through applications of analogies, similes and metaphors, conscious and intuitive decision-making, time and task management, creation of alternative futures through projections and systemic constructions, use of philosophy, including logic, values, epistemologies and ontologies, tactical and strategic constructions of candidate realities, decisions, and actions, reassessments of the past, present, and anticipated or preferred futures, reassessments of self and others in differing contexts, constructions of mental simulations as heuristic and self-instructive virtual realities and worlds, role playing, role shifting, and role creation, dualistic and non-dualistic thought, continuous generation of multiple perspectives of systems in their simplicity, complexity and organization, self-leadership and leadership of others, construction of decision algorithms, continuous experimentalism in negotiating daily decisions, continuous reassessment of the value of personal experience and outside resources, emotion management, intellectual focusing, engagement with hard, soft, and bio technologies, the generation of correlational and causal associations, engagement in information searches and data mining, development and interpretation of meaning, creative understandings of impact potentials, creation, application, and extensions of knowledge-in-context, uses and creations of language suitable for engaging in the preceding activities, continuous creation and redefinition of alternative personal and collective cultures, on-going creation of preferred futures and present/past reinterpretations.for the purposes of this paper, these skills may be understood as evidence of an implicate professionalism demonstrated in countless daily acts carried out by literally billions of ordinary people. we define implicate professionalism as the protean layer of competencies, skills and performances that characterize expressions of personal and social capital.a new synergy between individuals and tertiary learningwhile we may assume that the majority of these protean skill minimums are already part of the literature of most professions, we cannot assume that formal guidance in their development and use is usually available to any given individual throug